Too Young to Know
by KeepingTheStarsApart
Summary: Late night cigarette talks. Might be made a multi-chap.


It was a dark December night, windless, and the sky was clear of clouds or fog when Reggie stepped out of the stone stairwell of the Astronomy tower.

It had been an exhausting day of keeping up facades and fighting to hide his crumbling belief system from people he could barely stand to look at. At the end of it all he just needed to get away for a while and let the walls come crashing down around him.

He paused to lean against the cool doorway to the tower to study the stars. He could see his brother's namesake shining brightly in the North sky. He sighed. Another name on the long list of his regrets. Quite likely the very top. It was usually the name he thought most when he didn't have his emotions under lock and chain and spell and key. When he was being honest with himself, the name 'Sirius_' _caused a big, black, debilitating _hole_ in his chest.

With a sad shake of his head, Reggie pushed those thoughts away. His relationship with his brother was irreparable, at least at the moment. He pushed off of the wall and pulled the long white nicotine-stick from behind his ear to his mouth and lit it. Sucking in a greedy lungful that almost masked the feminine gasp as he stepped into the starlight.

Reggie turned his head slightly to the side to see a shadowed figure topped with moonlit red hair that could only belong to Lily Evans. Reggie inhaled another breath of smoke and contemplated leaving. But this was Reggie, the 16 year-old kid with his back against the wall, not Regulus, the Death Eater.

Instead he took a step towards her. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was up here." Smoke billowed out as he spoke.

She didn't respond so he turned back to the night sky. His eyes automatically seeking out the damned Dogstar. He wondered if Lily knew about Sirius' star. When Sirius was a kid everyone knew he was a star.

"You ever feel like maybe you don't really know anything you think you know?" He took another pull from his cigarette and glanced back at Evans. She had her head cocked to the side, he wondered if she was contemplating his question, or why he was talking to her in the first place.

"I'm not really sure I know what you mean."

"Like everything you think you know starts to feel wrong. You start to doubt yourself and everyone around you and then everything just falls to shit. And suddenly you've developed Split Personality and you're ashamed to be in your own skin." His words came out in a slow tumble along with the smoke from his cigarette.

He could feel Lily Evans' eyes on his back. "Think I could get one of those?"

Reggie crossed the tower and slid down the cold stone wall to sit next to her. He pulled a cigarette case disguised as a small book out of the front of his hoodie and stuck a second cigarette between his lips and lit it for her.

Reggie watched on in amusement as Lily Evans took the first drag of her first cigarette. The Slytherin bad boy corrupting the Gryffindor good girl. But she got the hang of it quickly, and soon they were sitting together puffing away like two chimneys.

"So if I understand this correctly, _the _Slytherin Prince, Heir to the Black Throne, is starting to doubt his bigoted upbringing?" Her words were offensive, but he could tell there was no real venom in them. Probably she was just still wary of him.

"I don't know. More like I'm just starting to realize that I don't really care about all of it. Blood purity is fun and all, but what does it really matter? The world would be a lonely place if no one but the purebloods were alive." He glanced back up at Sirius. "And I'm going to lose people I care about no matter who wins this war."

They fell silent again. Neither quite knowing what to say.

"I get it. I'm scared of what will happen if either side wins, too." She was looking away from him, no doubt thinking about Severus Snape, he figured. "So if you don't believe in the whole 'Purebloods Should Rule the Earth' propanganda, why do you do it?"

Regulus had finished his first cigarette by now and pulled out another, the tightly-wound bundle of nerves in his stomach had not completely unknotted itself. "It's complicated."

"Try me." Lily's face was open and accepting, so he decided to do just that.

"I have to protect myself. My family. Sirius. If I try to get out now, we'll all be killed." He broke off to gulp in a lungful of smoke. "Maybe if I had realized sooner... But anyways, I didn't."

"Have you been Marked?"

Reggie stuck his cigarette between his teeth and pulled up the sleeve of his hoodie to show her his smooth tan skin, unmarred by the calling card of the Dark Lord.

"So it's not too late to change sides, right?" Reggie was shaking his head halfway through her sentence.

"It is. I've been to meetings and impressed the higher ups. The Dark Lord," he tried not to notice Lily flinching at his use of the name Death Eaters called their Master, "himself is interested in my potion making skills." He glanced back into the night sky. "Besides, I kind of feel like I can protect my family a little better when I know what's going on in the minds of the Death Eaters." By family, he meant Sirius. Reggie's father had died in the last year and his mother had lost interest in her son's life without him.

Lily didn't know quite what to say to him, so she changed the subject. "So how long have you been coming up here to smoke?"

Reggie grinned at her, thankful for the shift. "Since third year, when I picked up the habit from Sirius."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Sirius smokes?"

"Like a fuckin' chimney."

Lily shook her head, she guessed it would be hypocritical of her to get on to Sirius for smoking. Glancing back at the youngest black brother, she realized that he always seemed to have dark circles under his eyes when she noticed him in the hallways, and she had noticed him. How could she not? He had all of Sirius' good looks without the swagger that came with them. Where Sirius was boastful and outgoing, Regulus was calmly self-assured, and that attracted Lily. But before she had always written him off as a future Death Eater, an idea she had actually gotten from his brother.

"I'm sorry."

Regulus turned toward her, wide-eyed. "For what?"

"Judging you."

He nodded. "Me too."

They sat for another few minutes while Regulus finished his second cigarette. After stubbing it out on the floor next to his foot he stood up and brushed off his legs.

"It was nice talking to you, Evans."

"Lily." He gave her a small smile. "Will you be up here again?"

"Nearly every night." He gave her a small wave as he made his way back to the staircase.

He left Lily feeling confused. She had never really thought about how it was to be on the other side of the war. Suddenly her world didn't feel so black and white.


End file.
